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South African Police Crackdown on Zimbabwean Refugees Criminal
Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF)
January 31, 2008

Until now South Africa has appeared on the face of it to be sympathetic to survivors of human rights abuses from Zimbabwe. However, yesterday night's events compel us to have serious doubts. Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF) has been informed that at around midnight yesterday, the South African Police, together with Home Affairs officials, raided the Johannesburg Methodist Church. They were ostensibly searching for undocumented Zimbabweans taking refugee in the church. Those affected reveal that Zimbabwean refugees were beaten up severely with baton sticks, and such belongings like Television sets, cell phones, radios and food were confiscated by the police. Our informants have confirmed that excessive force and violence were used, such that even Bishop Paul Verryn was assaulted during this operation.

ZEF contends that there is no legal basis for the police to confiscate people's belongings; in fact it is criminal for them to do so. It is indeed hypocritical for the South African government to appear to sympathise with their Zimbabwean counterparts when its departments are terrorizing Zimbabweans in South Africa. It is also in utter contempt of the church environment and a desecration for the police to use violence in a church, apart from it being cruelly ironic that the very same people who fled police brutality from Zimbabwe have to face it again on this side of the border. Many of the Zimbabweans facing deportation after yesterday's crackdown are the very people who are awaiting their asylum status determination by Home Affairs Department, and amongst them are people who run the risk of being tortured upon arrival in Zimbabwe.

In view of the above, ZEF urges the Minister of Home Affairs, the Minister of Safety and Security and the Commissioner of Police to reign in their employees and urge them to comply with both international and national refugee laws, to which South Africa is a party. We also urge them to publicly condemn what transpired yesterday. Lastly, ZEF calls upon the Minister of Foreign Affairs to accept the request by the African Union's African Commission on Human and People's Rights Special Rapporteur on Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, to visit South Africa and see for himself the horrors that Zimbabwean refugees are sometimes subjected to.

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